A good once over - Part one.

Now the scooter's running, it's time to give it a once over and a service. Warned by their reputation, I expect to find low quality parts in some places and poor quality finish to, well, almost everything,

With the engine running, I can check all of the electrics. With the exception of the horn and the electric start, everything seems to work. That's better than I expected.

The brakes need a coat of looking at. The rear drum is fine, although the lever travel is on the long side. The front disk has very little travel and seems poor, so will need a looking at, and the end of the lever is snapped off. That'll go on the list of parts to buy, along with a new speedo cable.

Bodywork wise, apart from the broken section of the front mudguard, the panels aren't too bad. There's the odd scrape which may respond to T-cut, and some sticky patches from where the L-plates have been taped on which will clean off. Some of the panels are lightly cracked in places, but they're firmly attached and not massively noticeable. I'll ignore these for now.

I've already checked that someone's changed the plug for an NGK so that's one thing off of the list, but I need to change the oils and take a look under the belt cover to see what state that's all in. The Chinese belts fitted from new have a poor reputation.

Out with the gearbox drain plug, and I'l surprised to find good quality clean oil. Has someone been here already? I pop the plugs back in and refill with new EP80 gear oil from my squirty oil can.

It's engine oil next. That comes out black, but the strainer is nice and clean. After it's drained, I replace the drain plug with a new O-ring and fill up with 5w40 Castrol Magnatec that I had on the shelf. These bikes won't need bike specific oil, as they don't have wet clutches, so don't waste your cash on motorcycle oil for one of these.

The belt cover is held on with 8mm headed bolts. They all come out, but all look very dry. I'll put them back in with copper grease on the threads later. The cover looks rather corroded on the outside, the paint is flaking off in places - this is poorly finished from new. Inside, it looks fine though. The belt itself is.... a Contitech. Someone's replaced the original belt with the best one available. Result! The clutch bell as a small amount of run out on the outside, but as the clutch engages smoothly and doesn't judder I'm going to assume it's OK on the inside where it matters and add it to the ignore list.

I clean the air filter, housing and pipework while I'm in the area, then screw it all back together and fire the bike up on the kick start to check it's OK. It's fine.

While I've been working on the bike, it's given me a chance to look an under the panels at the overall finish. Some bits look as good as any other scooter I've worked on, the electrics for example. Other bits are very poor. The frame paint would fall into this category, for a two year old bike. It's shockingly thin and appears to have been applied with little or no primer. Anyone looking at keeping one of these on the road long term would do well to invest in a can of Waxoyl or a similar rust preventative.

That'll do for now while I wait for my new mudguard to arrive, then I can tackle the front end.